In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of teaching and understanding the principles of support raising, winning friends, mobilizing God's people, and finding resources for world evangelism. The lack of knowledge and willingness to sacrifice in the church is a concern for the speaker. He encourages the audience to consider their lifestyle, mentality, and approach to money in relation to the unreached people and make decisions that will bring about a great missionary thrust. The speaker also mentions the need for radical changes in various aspects of life to obey Jesus' commandments and do the will of the Father.

Maybe I should just say a little word about myself, about OM, because most of you are new to the ministry that I'm involved in, a ministry that has most of its roots in Europe and India, and now almost completely international, with Korea as one of our main sending fields, Brazil another one, Argentina another one, a movement somehow raised up by God to be on the cutting edge of the internationalization of missions. World missions today is not largely an Anglo-Saxon project, but we're seeing literally tens of thousands of people from so-called third world countries, a term I reject, involved in cross-cultural communication, and somehow in God's purpose he raised up a unique mission fellowship, OM, to be ready to handle these young people on an equal basis with anybody from any other country, regardless of their financial status, a complex challenge to say the least. But now there are 2,000 of us full-time, we're no longer, we never were, only a short-term work, though we're known for that, because of the effective short-term training about 50,000 people have had with OM. But our main thrust has been the evangelization of the Muslim world. We now have 250, one of the largest agencies, working among Muslims, Pakistan, Bangladesh, church planting, 100 million Muslims of India. Can you imagine 100 million Muslims in India? There is no church among that 100 million. They're a minority group. How many southern states do you have to put together to get a hundred million? There's no church. There are a few individual believers among that hundred million. So our first thrust through about 15 different methods of evangelism is the Muslim world. Our second thrust has been the communist world, where we've been laboring in Eastern Europe in a ministry of renewal and prayer and literature and all kinds of other things for the last quarter of a century. It's impossible to express how joyful and overwhelmed we are with what God is doing in Eastern Europe right now. Just come from speaking at Mission 90, the largest missions conference in Europe, we had 400 there from Eastern Europe. I had the scary privilege of leading the prayer night from 11 at night to 1 in the morning. You would think they'd go home after that, but instead they all went into the book exhibition to buy copies of Operation World and other books. So in a sense, Operation Mobilization has come of age and it's taken its place as partners with so many other great mission societies. Perhaps I'm going to say some strong things on the basis of now 30 years on the mission field, though I went before that 33 years ago as a student of 19 down to Mexico in a short term summer effort, which became one of the birthplaces of short-term missionary work. There's a terrific amount of misunderstanding about short-term work, and sadly enough, even among men of considerable stature, I would have thought intellectually. But I think just being in this country and not doing their homework properly, they have come up with some very untrue and false conclusions about short-term work. I know now most missionary leaders on the field, not theoretical people back in school, but people on the field believe that short-term work is one of God's gifts to this generation, this unique global village in which we now live. And the word from the Word of God that especially was on my heart and may help me maintain balance in my presentation tonight, is that word in Philippians that says, esteeming others better than yourself. And I just think of how we're so divided in America, and there's so many different causes. We all know of the abortion cause, which is such an important thing for every Christian to be thinking and praying about, doing something about. But I must confess, when I meet some of these heavy abortion people, that they seem to have almost zero interest in the fact that souls are going to hell. These little babies that die in their mother's wombs, I don't believe they go to hell. Maybe that disagrees with your theology. But a soul in India, in China, the hundred million Muslims, when they go out into eternity, they go to hell. Otherwise, schools like this have no purpose in all this. Just a con, Billy Graham, conned me in. I was going, I was minding my own business. I was doing fine at 16. I had three businesses. I had money. I had women. I was happy. And one of these Bible believers came into my life, a little Bible-believing lady who believed in hell, prayed for me that I would get saved. I didn't even know what that meant. Then she prayed that I'd become a missionary of all the audacity. She didn't even tell me about it. Then she sent me a gospel of John through the mail, and I read that, and it broke my heart. And then I went to that fire and brimstone preacher, Billy Graham, who called me to repent, believe on Jesus Christ. And I did. By God's mercy, I was saved. And within hours, I began sharing my faith, and I've never stopped a single day ever since. And as I studied the word of God, and actually almost overthrew the Christian faith completely because of intellectual doubts, I became convinced that the Bible was true. I became convinced that Jesus was the way, the truth, and the life, that there was such a place as hell, and that all Christians should be involved in rescuing the perishing and caring for the dying. Not so popular in our day in which universalism is one of the fastest-growing theological tidbits among the intellectual eggheads in our institutions. I have wanted not only to reject, I'm being very honest, I've not only wanted to reject the doctrine of hell, I must be quite honest, I have wanted to reject Christianity. I am not a natural Christian. I find a lot of Christians are a real pain in the neck, and don't get on with them very easily. I try to be more optimistic, develop a little prayer when I feel this pain. Thank you, Jesus, that I'm not a giraffe. And in fact, to be also honest, the Holy Spirit in my heart, when I repent, has given me a great love for God's people. But if men are not lost, if Muslims are going to get there through Muhammad, if Hindus are going to get there through their thousands of gods, then I don't know what all the fuss is about. I don't know what we're having missions conferences about, and why we have to risk lives. I have 20 of my friends dead in the cause of world missions. One of them murdered on the doorstep in Istanbul, others in motor accidents. Our latest has totally disappeared, John Tarswell. Three months, no trace, no body, no nothing. I have to talk every other day or so, a little less now, with his wife, and try to encourage her and explain that we're still searching, we're still looking. She's just given birth to another son. And I think of the men who died among the Alka Indians, when I think of what men like C.T. Studriss, when he went into Africa, already a museum of diseases. I think if they're not lost, if they're all going to end up in heaven, what is the purpose of this? Is this some kind of a spiritual Boy Scout adventure? Or is this just something so that more people can be employed? After all, there are people that have a gift to teach the Bible, and if somebody doesn't start a Bible college, how will they get a job? Men are lost. I have never lost that conviction, though I've struggled many times with it, on any day in these thirty-some years. I come with a great burden to see everybody in the world given the gospel. And I feel, though I didn't sort of lead the way, I feel the concept of the Year 2000 movement is basically a good one. I'm always a little reluctant to join some of these things. I've now asked to be on the Council of References for the Year 2000 movement. You may not even know what that is, but a group of Christian leaders met in Singapore. I didn't go, couldn't afford the airfare, but they met in Singapore, and they got all excited, and they submitted their various plans to evangelize the whole world by the Year 2000. Ralph Winter, of course, was there. What a one-arrow, amazing, eccentric character. Many, many people have submitted their various strategies and plans toward the Year 2000 in Operation Mobilization. We have been trying to do that. We're so diverse. Each one of our countries, we're permanently in about 40, 50 countries, have their own strategy and their own vision. It's hard for us to put it all together. But our European leaders came up with a program called Love Europe, and so that's part of that. And I'm excited about that. But just going back for a minute, as I think of all these different causes we have in America, abortion, which is good, and especially when you get to Bible college, you feel hit by many directions, all little groups, little lobby groups. One is saying that the key to everything is revival, and you get groups playing away and battling away for revival. I've watched such groups for 33 years. It's been one of the most depressing things in my whole ministry, because in most cases it's never come, at least the way they've been praying for it. And a lot of the people who are weeping and crying and fasting and praying for the kind of revival that people are dreaming is going to come are all dead, and it never happened. Now, I'm not against that kind of praying. If it's in balance and if it's tucked in with a whole counsel of God, I'm still doing it. I was just at Asbury College. They had a revival in 1970. They're still talking about the revival in 1970. There is some fruit from that revival, but basically that's history. That's history. That's 1970. This, for any of you who are little latecomers, is 1990. And the truth is, and this is going to be one of the main thrusts of my message, this message is going to blow every little homiletical idea you've ever had, so just relax. Some of you already look very tense. If you don't get it all, you can listen to the tape. You can even search for backward masking. Now I've lost track of that particular thrust. Let's get back to the esteeming others better than yourself. The fact that we have all these different emphases. Another one is expository preaching. Has that one come yet? That all of our problems are because we don't expound properly the Word of God. If we expound properly the Word of God, everybody's going to be mature. We're all going to take care of all the other problems in the world. Now, don't misunderstand. I believe in expository preaching. Occasionally I do it myself. And I esteem, I mean, Stephen Olford, tremendous. He's over the top, like me in some areas, but he's a great preacher. John Stott, one of my favorites. But many expository preachers, especially those who are just copying the great expositors, are utterly, utterly boring. Then of course, somebody gets really uptight and says, well, if it's the Word of God, it's never boring. And we all feel miserable because some of us, in fact, find church generally rather boring and are so fed up with meetings that we would never go to another one again unless it were required at 10 in the morning. So the church today is moving in many, many, many directions. Even in missionary work, we have at least 50 major controversies among missionaries. I must confess in counseling, pastoring, and working with missionaries over the years, that they are some of the most stubborn, impossible, bullheaded, obnoxious people I have ever met. I always feel like giving them Dale Carnegie's book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. I can just imagine some of you who read Seduction of Christianity by a hunter, or a man named Hunt, that even mentioning that book would be dangerous. You probably now think I'm a New Ager. That's another big thing. That sort of competes with Amway. There must be a hundred, there must be a hundred different directions that people are going with. And you come into Bible college, and they're all there lurking. They either have displays, or cameras, or they sort of meet you at the door, and they've got a leaflet, or a free t-shirt, trying to get you to go in one particular direction. And tonight it's George Brewer. What direction do you think he's trying to get you to go to? Some have even come because they thought if they came here tonight, they'd end up in the Muslim world, and that's the last thing they want to do. Because they all, this little guy who once had an interest in the Muslim world, married little silly Sally, who is not going to the Muslim world. She's already told the Holy Spirit she's not going to the Muslim world. She's already purchased I'm not going to a Muslim world t-shirt, and he is just gonna bring his whole marriage into difficulty if he comes here tonight and gets a challenge for the Muslim world. Or maybe a challenge to the communist world. That's not so bad now that the curtain is sort of melting, but we don't really know what's going to happen next. But I want to surprise you. My great burden tonight, more than anything else, is not to get you into one of these causes. I believe they all have a degree of legitimacy, and I believe the key in our mega mega super world-class kind of pluralism that we've created in our unique society with all of our different churches and 22,000 denominations, I believe the key is love. And love will involve listening to people, and love will involve the fruit of the Spirit, and love will deliver us from judgmentalism, so that we're always going around putting other Christians down. You're not doing enough for abortion. You should be laying out in front of the clinics, even though you're way overweight and the police won't be able to remove you. Or you shouldn't be just giving your testimony. You should shut up until you're an expository preacher. Or you should be attending all the concerts of prayer, because if you're not praying, you're straying, which is true. And we want to see you. We need to learn to love one another. We need to learn to esteem one another. I think of how many people have rejected certain Christian leaders, certain Christian movements, on the basis of hearsay. Let me give you an example. I have a book here called C.T. Stud. I was a student at Moody Bible Institute. I was a young student. I read this at college before I went to Moody. And when I went to Moody, I brought up with somebody the subject of WAC, World Evangelization Crusade. And all I could get was negative reports. I thought, this group must be really off the wall, WAC. And I never saw this book anywhere at Moody Bible Institute. Fortunately, I had it before I got there. But I decided not to reject WAC. I had the fortunate position of always being a bit stubborn, a bit radical. And if someone wants to get me positive about something, all I have to do is say something negative about it, especially if I don't like their face. Of course, I always repent of that. But in the last 29, 30 years since I graduated, I actually did graduate from Moody. I just took their missions conference. They gave me another copy. It's quite an amazing meeting. It was the final meeting of six meetings. And the president of Moody, I had thrown my tie in the first meeting. I won't do that tonight. And he said, I'm going to give you this copy of your diploma, but you must promise not to throw it at the audience. I said, I will promise if you will take off that tie. And the president of Moody, most of the students thought it was actually painted there. Took off his necktie and revival almost came. But in the past 30 years, in going around the world, researching and reading and looking and interviewing and loving, I've come to consider the World Evangelization Crusade, one of the greatest missionary works I could ever, ever bump into. It competes with my favorite China Inland Mission, OMF. They both really born out of Great Britain. Both had unique influences of the day and age in which the mission was born. So often we make evaluations on the basis of hearsay. So often we only have half the picture or a third of the picture. And this creates disunity. This creates confusion. And my plea tonight, and I just hope this sets the pace for your missions conference, your world missions week, to esteem others better than yourself. Now you have a lot of people in America now who feel that they need to get into Christian education in America. Sometimes I haven't even opened my mouth with someone because I know I represent foreign missions to some degree, and they're telling me automatically why they're staying in America. And they describe America as such a pagan place that to leave it would be really to be a traitor. I remember speaking at Trinity Divinity College once, and a fellow jumped up at lunch in a question-answer session, and he said, it was amazing, he said, why are you missionaries taking all the cream overseas and leaving us here in America with just, I forget what he said, we're left behind. Well, if we've got all the cream on the mission field, some of it's gone sour, but I think he was a little bit over the top. Because only a tiny percentage, only a tiny percentage of people out of all of our colleges and universities and Christian institutions, a higher percentage from here than most places, go to the mission field. Let us understand that. You can get a wrong idea here. How many of you, for example, are praying about seriously moving toward overseas service? Raise your hand. Okay, that's 80%. Does that give us a picture of the situation in the United States? No, that would be a ridiculously foolish conclusion. I could take surveys in other meetings, and only a few hands would go up. The fact of the matter is, at the end of the day, only a tiny percentage are going overseas. Many who actually raise their hand in meetings like this who say they are going, never get there or never stay, because it is complicated, society is complicated, the financing of mission work is one of the most complicated things I've ever studied, and the key is that we need one another. I wish that tonight I had all those sitting here who are absolutely convinced that they're not going to the mission field. That's the group I want to speak to more and more. I wish I had here tonight 200 businessmen from Columbia, South Carolina. I spoke to a few in the churches I spoke at yesterday, because unless we see a grassroots movement in the churches, among businessmen, among those who have the resources, among those who own all this land, in all of America, then a high percentage of those who want to go will never go or they will never stay. One of the leading missiologists in the nation just wrote me a letter and said in the 90s he believes the greatest problem will be the financing of those who want to go to the mission field. Yet we know that all of these other various emphases and various movements also have tremendous demands on our finance, and these things that are all around us, taking care of drug addicts, which I believe, working against abortion, which I believe in, having good contextualized spontaneous churches that can reach pagan Americans, which I also believe in, all of these things consume hundreds of millions of dollars. Hundreds of millions of dollars. We have a million people, I believe somewhere near a million people in America who are in some kind of Christian employment or Christian work. It's incredible, huge amount of money to keep all of these different things going. And something in me says somehow they should keep going, except those things that are cults or false doctrine or heresy. And therefore the only way I can see world evangelization taking place between now and the year 2000 and beyond is if we band together and the person who remains at home, who's convinced that he should stay at home, becomes a world Christian. Now if you want to become a missionary, if you are really serious about this thing, not just playing games or somehow following in some kind of missionary fog, then you are going to read that little book, How to Win Friends and Influence People. You know where I got the idea to push that book? Columbia Bible College. Thirty some years ago a man taught here. Was anybody here when Arthur Glasser taught here? Praise God, Arthur Glasser. Many of his students at Columbia Bible College, in one of his classes, read How to Win Friends and Influence People and put scripture references to some of these things that Dale Carnegie sort of distorted and used for a more human approach to winning people. It's a brilliant book. Many a marriage has been saved by that book. So you can start that again 30 years later. I don't have any copies. You'll have to order them from your bookstore. You've got a fine bookstore. What am I saying? You have to learn to win people. I want you, each one of you thinking about the mission field, to target 25 businessmen in the next six months. I want you to learn how to win people. I want you to win some of the people here on the campus who are a little bit anti-missionary. You actually make them a little nervous. They're not going to go to your missionary prayer meeting. They feel God's leading them to stay here. They're going to be a pastor, or they're going to be a Christian educator, or they're going to work among drug addicts, or work among youth, or plant churches in Columbia. That's the greatest need, more churches in Columbia, South Carolina. And you need to not put them off as I do, but you need to win them. You need to esteem them. Next time you get real angry about something you see, you let love cover. We're going to talk about a book by that title in a little while. You need to repent of your wrong attitude, repent of any superiority feeling, any missionary pride, any prayer meeting pride, any verbal messages pride, any other subtle forms of arrogance, and just love them, and win them. I have a couple of friends, even from my high school, that somehow, somehow despite all of my outspoken arrogance, they know I love them. The last time I sat down and had lunch with one of them, he gave me $7,000. I had lunch with another one, he gave me $5,000. Now when's the last time you sat down and had lunch and somebody gave you $7,000? Don't go to this cafeteria. You go downtown. You better go to the Holiday Inn. The lack of teaching, listen, 30 years I learned this a hard way, and I'll debate any missiologist anywhere in the country on this subject. The lack of teaching about support raising, about winning friends, about mobilizing God's people, about finding the resources, is hindering world evangelism as much as anything I can think of apart from just unadulterated lack of love and lack of faith or materialism, the real biggies. And I pray that as you think about the field and you get this vision and you want to go, you will make friends. I was listening to this on the Word of God this morning. I jogged down to the river early this morning. It's a wonderful walk. You jog along the pipeline wondering if it's going to explode as you go. But I was listening to this scripture today about how often the people of the world are wiser than the people of life. You know that scripture? We need to come together. We need to esteem one another so that we can say to this brother who feels he's led to stay here, well, if that's what God's leading you to do, that's tremendous. I want to pray for you. Let's exchange names and addresses. I'll pray for your ministry. You pray for my ministry. I sense God is leading me to Capuchin. I sense God is leading me to India. Let's correspond. Let's become partners. You're going to remain here. I'm going to go there. No more one-upmanship. No more we full-time Christian workers are God's elite. This poor turkey working down for IBM or this poor guy working down here in the local gas station. He's second-class. We don't say that, but we infer it. We over magnify in America so-called full-time Christian work. My opinion after 30 years is that many laymen are more committed to Jesus Christ than full-time Christian workers. In fact, I think a lot of full-time workers are a bit lazy, including some in operation, mobilization, and one of the privileges I've had is to ease some of them out. And believe it or not, when they got home, some of them couldn't get a job. Might be good for you to learn how to type after all. Might be good for you to learn a trade. Somebody had a bumper sticker on their car. I follow a Jewish carpenter. Yes, unless we learn to esteem one another better than ourself, unless we somehow are willing to take 1st Corinthians 13 and incorporate it into the heart of our life and our ministry, things aren't going to gel. That revival isn't going to really come, and that world by the year 2000 isn't going to be reached. Now a lot of people talk as if to reach the world by the year 2000 is really relatively easy. I always get a kick out of this. They're usually from California, and the way they talk is quite humorous. The British and the Europeans in general can barely stand even to listen to these people. You cannot believe how many Europeans are against some of the things that come out of this country because of the way that it's stated. They mean well, but their brains run a little, just a little slower than their mouths. And so then it gets into print and it comes over to Europe and Europeans think differently than Americans. And of course, every country in Europe is different. And I know some people that are actually reacting to some of these statements and they are convinced it will not happen. The world will not be evangelized by the year 2000. And we're just going to work up a big load of steam and all get disappointed in the next 10 years. Now I'm somewhere in the middle. I believe it can happen. A lot depends on definition. Some are saying world evangelism. I noticed the movement has now put and beyond. They just changed their name. Isn't that amazing? I think that was good. And beyond, for any of you that is still around the year 2001 and missed the rapture, and beyond. Don't quote me on that. I don't believe we know the times and the seasons. So some believe that by the year 2000, we'll have a church in every people's group. I think that would be the goal of quite a few. And then they add other things, a multiplying church, an indigenous multiplying church, an indigenous multiplying church that's able to indigenously multiply. I have someone, I've worked a lot in Pakistan, one of my favorite countries. And I have someone that thought there were only a few unreached people's groups left in Pakistan, the Baluch and the Patons and a few others. They weren't interested in working among the massive Muslim Urdu community because they heard there were some Urdu speaking converts. I mean, it's completely ridiculous. The great mass of the people of Pakistan, even though there are Urdu speaking churches are unbelievably unreached. Because those Urdu speaking churches, and Urdu is not the first language of most people of Pakistan, they are mainly people from outcast background. Hardly any of them are from converted Muslim background. Therefore they are unable to reach cross-culturally to their Muslim neighbors. So in fact, it's not just the Baluch and the Patons and a few others that are unreached in Pakistan, hundred million people in Pakistan. Most of the people in Pakistan of these huge Punjabi, Sindhi, other populations are unreached. Jump over the border and you get to India. India has a hundred million Muslims. Did I mention that already? Let me mention it again. Hundred million Muslims, minority group, and as I already stated, they have no church. Now our leader of our work in India, we have 300 full-time people in India, some of the finest people I've ever met in my Christian life. Our executive director is Joseph de Souza. He went to Lausanne. That was the next big thing after the Singapore thing. People can always criticize these big events, but my own personal conviction is that in the light of the task, in the light of the problems, in the light of all the factors, these events are needed and are used of God. So easy to criticize what we don't really understand, and especially if it involves big money, because in fact many Christians, and we had quite a few of them in OM, are small-minded little people who are better at saving pennies than they are at believing God for the big money that's going to be needed to evangelize a world of six billion people. So the money we spent on Lausanne, I didn't put much in. I think I sent a little bit to prime the pump in the early days. I got a thank you letter back. The money we spent on Lausanne, or the Singapore year 2000 meeting, or the money you're spending to go through college, or to throw up a few buildings and teepees and whatever else you've got around here, this is nothing. This is small compared to the money we need to evangelize the whole world. Do you realize what our goals actually are? Six billion people. In 1840, we had one billion in the whole world. 1840, that's not so long ago. I know you weren't there, but it's not so long ago. One billion people. Now in the Indian subcontinent alone, where missionaries are finding it harder and harder to go, especially India, we have a billion people. In China, we have more than a billion. Population explosion, please study it. It'll depress you, it'll frighten you. If you're a committed Christian, you'll probably start screaming reading some of the books, but population explosion must invade our thinking if we are to reach the world by the year 2000. Now, my goals are not quite as high as some other people, though I'm more than willing for their goals, and I'm praying for my unbelief to be delivered and to grow in faith and all these things I need. But my goal, and it's hard enough even having my own goal, which is much less than what I just talked about, is that everybody in the world would at least have the opportunity to hear about Jesus Christ. Now, that's a lot easier. That's still impossible, but it's a lot easier than seeing a church planted in every single unreached people's group, which basically means an escalation of what's been going on in missions by tenfold, by a hundredfold. I don't know if we could classify it. But with radio, with technology, with mass mobilization of the man in the pew, mass mobilization of students and young people. Think of the Mormons. They've got 26,000 on the field, one little cult. How many could we, the Church of Jesus Christ, if there was a major move, could mobilize? And those mobilized people will mobilize others when they return to their own country, some of them after short-term work, they will leave behind, as we have seen all over the world, other people that have come to Jesus who live in that country. They can't go anywhere else, but stay there. So I believe that through prayer, through hard work, through spreading the vision, through a much greater effort to release resources, through a revolution of love, that we can make Jesus Christ known to every man and woman in the world by the year 2000. Whether we say it's evangelized or not, that doesn't matter so much to me. I don't think we ever complete evangelizing. We have to keep re-evangelizing. I believe together with this work of evangelism, we must also commit ourselves avidly, militantly, to renewal and restoration in the Church of Jesus Christ, that the principles we read about in the Word of God will be restored. Prayer as the heart, prayer and worship as the heart of the Church's activities. Those are called worship, the missing jewel of the evangelical Church. A high percentage of Christians I meet here in this country, it seems to me they do not understand worship. What it is just to worship God. I want you to pick up a book if you can from your bookstore. We have a few there on the back called Destined for the Throne. Destined for the Throne. Billy Graham said something about this that I thought was very interesting. If I can find out where he wrote it, just hang on there and don't run away. Dedication to his wife. There it is. I have just read the manuscript of Paul E. Bilheimer's book, Destined for the Throne, and have been inspired and challenged by the insights and fresh interpretation of scripture regarding prayer, praise, and the Church's place in the world. Every Christian who feels impelled to find a deeper dimension of Christian witness should not only read this book, but study it prayerfully and apply its principles to his life. Billy Graham. Worship is our highest calling. Whatever else we may be doing, whatever else we may be crusading for, whatever else we may be studying, the center of all of it should be our worship of God, knowing God, growing in God. Many writers, including Watchman Nee, have indicated that God is going to allow a lot of things to go wrong in your life to get you to that place where eventually you can say, God is enough. Have you ever had that? God is enough. I believe revival and restoration within the Church of biblical Christianity, which to me includes personal revival, is equally as important as world missions. I do not believe these things should be in competition. This is why I don't believe the first need for Americans is to run off to the mission field. I believe they need to seek guidance from God. I believe they should seek counsel from godly people. I believe they should discover what their gifts are. I believe they should consider also what nationals can do living in their own country who already speak the language. And that's another great controversy that I find myself right in the middle of, since K.P. Yohannan dedicated his radical book to me. And he and I have had some lively discussions on the subject, because I am strongly committed to continuing to see Americans going out as missionaries. But my plea is that they may be the right Americans. They may be godly men and women. They may be humble men and women. They may be men and women who are dependent upon God. They may be men and women who know reality in prayer. No church in the world today that I know of is going to refuse committed, crucified, humble godly people, whether they are Americans, Chinese, French, or Russian. That is why those days here, these days here, at Columbia Bible College are incredibly important. If I were you, I would consider it a rare privilege to be able to study in such an institution with such a godly leader as Robertson McQuilkin, where missions is so emphasized, where the word of God is so emphasized, where faith has been a foundation principle from the earliest days of the college. That doesn't mean it's perfect and nothing is perfect. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be changes for any college or any institution that does anything for God, including Operation Mobilization, must be willing to change. We must not only move into the 20th century, we have to move into the 21st century. That's very, very, very important. Yes, we live in perhaps the most significant, exciting decade of this century. Is it wrong to say that? Does that belittle those who have gone on before us? No, I think this decade is the most crucial because it is the decade in which we can build on all the foundations of those who went on before us. We're just part of a team. We're not boasting because we're in the 90s, but there's a momentum that has built up. Think of the growth of Christian radio. Think of the growth of Christian literature. No, all of it needs to double and triple and quadruple. Think of the growth of the Bible college movement. I may eventually go down in history as the character that spoke in the most Bible colleges in the world. I don't know, and I don't think that will get me anywhere in heaven, might give me a headache down here. But the Bible college movement, I've just come from Prairie, just come from Briarcrest and Moody, is a phenomenal movement of the Spirit of God that has released more people into world missions. And we have these Bible colleges all over Britain. I'm in most of them regularly. We have them all over Europe. In fact, you can hardly find a Bible college in the world and not find an OMer, somebody who was on an OM campaign or got converted to Christ through OM. And because we are a complementary, supplementary movement to the Bible college movement in terms of training, they are there. In fact, sometimes one fourth of the whole student body in Europe and Asia are made up of ex-OM people that somehow God has touched. We need to come together more. We need to emphasize love and worship. We need to realize that God leads different people in different ways. Many are going to be led to stay, but those of you who are led to stay, you need to esteem those who go. Pray for them, help them find their money, just take an interest. Why don't we take an interest more in other people? Why are we so egocentric, each man living his own world, each person concerned about his own house? Sure, there are many beautiful exceptions. Maybe you're one of them. I don't want to deliver oranges to Israel or sell ice cubes to Eskimos, but put the shoe on if it fits. Has those who remain at home become caught up in the task and praise God for those who already are. They mobilize prayer, they mobilize finance, and they can do that while they're carrying on their same ministry. One of my close personal friends is Melody Green. Do you think Melody has any involvement in the anti-abortion movement? One of the leaders, she was one of our main speakers at Love Europe. I've only got a few copies left of Keith Green's biography that I've been selling all over the country for his music was so powerful. And 40 days exactly before he died, we met, and our hearts were linked together like we were two brothers that just found each other. And I remember sitting with him at night when he was at the piano. He didn't play the piano, Keith, he attacked it. As he was attacking this piano, he was writing this song, Jesus commands us to go. And in his memorial concerts around Europe and around UK, I was involved in some of them, in the USA, thousands and thousands volunteered to go. So many have fallen by the wayside. You may come from a church that supports you, that encourages you, and that's going to finance you if you go into world missionary work. If you come from that kind of church, before you go to bed tonight, you thank Jesus. Because most of the people that I deal with who want to go to the mission field, and I'm talking about thousands of people. We had 7,000 on Love Europe this summer. They don't come from that kind of church. They will not be privileged to go through three or four years of this kind of training, especially many Europeans. But more and more are finding their way. So eventually, because perhaps they're not stubborn enough or whatever, they fall by the wayside. We're losing thousands of recruits because the church is not on the cutting edge of what the Spirit of God is saying and doing in connection with world missions. So our seminaries need to turn out godly, committed American pastors to pastor in America, missionary sending churches. There's a book on the table this evening that you've probably never seen. I don't know if we've sold one copy yet. It's called 10 Sending Churches. But it's a British book about 10 dynamic sending churches in Britain. Most Americans have cockeyed ideas about Great Britain. They think the place is just about falling off the edge of the earth and degradation and whatever. But in fact, there's a section of the church in Britain that's alive and well. We'll have 60,000 at spring harvest for seven days studying the word of God. A movement sponsored by a number of organizations, I think mainly Youth for Christ and a particular magazine in Britain, though some of us, almost all, are involved in one way or the other. We had 1,500 British young people come on Love Europe. We have more wanting to be full-time workers from Britain, long-term missionaries than we can seemingly possibly find the money for. Every year we lose British people because getting churches to support British missionaries once they're married with children is extremely difficult. Amazing, isn't it? We need each other. And you must not just think in terms of going to the mission field. You may have to stay back here a little while. You must think of mobilizing a grassroots movement for missions. And you've got to aim at the businessmen as well as the prisoners. I noticed quite a few go over to the prison for ministry. I went out to the peak here and looked at the prison. And I think that's one of the greatest ministries you can get involved in. And that's very attractive because we love the poor. And the N-word today is the poor. The second N-word today is urban. And you have people stating things that make you feel so miserable. If you're not living in the inner city, you feel like you're some kind of a backslidden duck. But the fact of the matter is that unless we reach out to the suburbs and see some of these people saved who are holding the resources of our nation, unless we reach out also to the wealthy, including those who are already Christians, and see a grassroots movement for missionary work so that the hundreds of millions, we need hundreds of millions, brothers and sisters to do the job that Jesus Christ has come to give us. Now, there may be someone at this point that likes to throw a cliché. Let's throw a cliché. It's cliché throwing time, right? God's work done in God's way will never lack God's supply. That's a good one. Bingo! I threw it around for years. I threw it around for years. I made people feel miserable. Absolutely. I had a gift making people feel miserable. People thought in my early days, because I was so intense, that I was going to have a nervous breakdown. I never had a nervous breakdown. That wasn't my thing. My thing was giving other people nervous breakdowns, making people feel miserable by some of my extremist statements about faith. And I became in the area of faith and believing God for money. For 25 years, I moved to some degree into a camp that could be compared with the extremist people who never go to doctors, who never take medicine, who don't want any diagnosis of their illness. One church like that in Indiana had 60 to 70 people dead. And I thank God for people. They didn't give up on me. They knew I was stubborn, but they didn't give up on me. They wrote me their little letters. And I began to see that praying and trusting God for finance, which I still believe in with every inch in me, is not in competition with spreading the vision, sharing the message, showing the slides, telling people what's going on, speaking honestly about money and about your needs, which takes humility. And I saw in our own work a spiritual pride come in, because some of our people said, I don't think I ever said it, the Lord forgive me if I did, but some of our people would say, our money comes in by prayer alone. The fact is, for 30 years of our history of 25, prayer was the key factor. We never talked and shared much about money, but there were leaks. There were information leaks, not necessarily on purpose. Parents would find out that OM was again 100,000 in the red. People would come to our night of prayer. Our night of prayer became famous all over Europe. We debated whether we should ever talk about money when there was a visitor in the meeting. I decided, look, we've got to be able to pray for our financial problems. If there's a visitor in the need, we'll trust that to the sovereignty of God. Again and again, the visitors who snuck into the OM prayer meetings were the people who went out and wrote the checks. I want you to become intensely committed to intercessory prayer and releasing money through prayer. I've written a booklet, a leaflet about that. But I want you also to learn how to communicate the vision, to learn how to get people on board this great spiritual concord to reach every nation and every people's group with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Read some books about resourcing the work of God. Read about how some of these great missionaries do it. Actually, One Mission Society, the Great China Inland Mission, were so gifted at this, they created their own language. They created their own language. They wrote phenomenal books about faith. As people read those books, as people learned that language, they gave abundantly, one lady, a million dollars to that great missionary work. A man's done research on George Muller, another man known for faith and for prayer, and they proved that George Muller was one of the greatest communicators about finance that has ever walked the face of the earth. I ought to be able to speak a little bit about those two men because some clown introduced me once in a meeting as the culmination of George Muller and Hudson Taylor and E.T. It was a great blessing in my life that I decided to be myself. And I am now as committed to seeing the finance come in as I am committed to see the workers go out. And when you have your prayer meetings from now on, I want you to pray for finance. I was at Briarcrest Bible College, and they have a gift for fundraising up there, and they raised $80,000 for missions during their Student Missions Conference. Eighty grand, the Canadians. I've been in People's Church a dozen times. Following the steps of Oswald J. Smith, I was at his hospital bed when he was dying shortly before he died. They've committed $1,200,000 to world missions. Most of the people have put big money into missions for the last hundred years have had the gift of speaking about it, not just praying about it. They had the gift of knowing how to take the offering at the right time, of knowing how to teach people the Faith Promise Program, knowing how to teach people about tithing or about tithing and beyond. Let's be open. Let's be honest. Start writing your own prayer letter. Mention your own financial needs in that prayer letter, what you need to get out of college. Some of you are in debt up to your eyeballs. Don't feel ashamed of that. The Word of God says the laborer is worthy of his hire. You are training to get into God's army. You are training to be in God's Marine Corps, and you are worthy of the right education, and the bills should be paid, and you are worthy of the salary and the money it takes for you to go out and do the job. Our country's done something very controversial again the last month, and it was very controversial. What was that? Panama. The other countries didn't like it. You know what they said in the United Nations? They're so influential, the United Nations. They said, naughty, naughty, naughty. We went into Panama, and I have to be careful because my American instincts start to come out, and I get in trouble when I get back in Europe. They already think I'm anti-communist. That's why I don't wear my red tie anymore. But we went into Panama, and I was reading the other day that we actually used, to this little invasion of Panama, we actually used that new bomber. What was that? What's that thing called? Wealth? Stealth? Something like that. We used this new bomber, and of course, at least most of the people seem to think it was totally unnecessary. Really, it's like you going out to hunt a rabbit, you know, with a machine gun. I know some Americans do that. One rabbit sort of comes limping along. Fact is, that invasion of Panama cost millions and millions and millions, who knows how many millions. Do we think we're going to have an invasion of every people's group in the world, an invasion of every nation, without seeing the millions come in? And I believe the way God does it, as we see in the scriptures, is going to demand sacrifice. I wish I had another hour. I don't know how long I'm supposed to speak. Nobody had the courage to tell me. But I'm leaving in the morning. But I wish I had another hour. I wish I had another hour to just speak about some other things that are so tied into this. And one of the things that frightens me the most about the church in America is the lack of willingness to sacrifice, even in the smallest way. How many of us would even sacrifice one little bit of candy? Do you buy candy occasionally? Nothing wrong with that. Do you buy an occasional Coke in the machine? One-armed bandits over there in the student center? Just imagine if we would sacrifice just a little bit. We're not asking you to become ascetic. Some of you look intense now. But if we would even learn a little bit about sacrifice, and if that vision could spread, because for you it may be sacrificing one Coke, and I love Coke, but for the other man who catches the vision, because of your life, because as the Spirit of God works through you, your life is going to begin to impact people. Your letters, your writing, your cassette tapes. You can even make a videotape today. It's going to impact people. And the next man who makes a sacrifice, it's going to be a yacht. I just had a phone call from Canada. We're in the midst of opening a major coordinating base in our work in India, shifting from Bombay to Hyderabad. We need some money. And a prayer partner in Canada just said, I pledge so many, I don't know, 30, 40 thousand dollars toward this project. God answers prayer. But he said, I can't send it at once. And then I heard, got to wait till his yacht gets sold. Glory, whenever a yacht gets sold from a believer, there's a big clap in heaven. For some of you that are rather happy about that, what about your rowboat? Even a rowboat sold for Jesus might ring some bells in heaven. These words have sort of disappeared from our Christian vocabulary. Discipline, sacrifice, enduring hardship, pain, suffering. And yet until those things are brought back into the heart of the Christian life, the heart of our thinking, we will not be able to produce the kind of men that can do the job. I would beg of you to reread the New Testament with somehow a new set of lenses so that you would see the kind of principles we see in the life of the Apostle Paul, who for the space of three years ceased not, night and day, to warn people. Do you think he had a vision? Do you think he had a ministry? Do you think he was intensive? Night and day with tears. You know one of the greatest things going on on this campus? It's these little prayer concerts. I arrive here on Saturday night rather late. I'm sort of doodling around wondering what's what I'm supposed to do. Somebody in the house where I'm staying says, hey, prayer concert, prayer concert! Let's go! And we got there. And there was this little group. I mean, this is a big institution. I heard it's somewhere around a thousand people around here. I don't know. That must include teachers. Maybe that includes pets. I don't know. But there was just a mighty small group. And I would have thought a prayer concert, why, a missionary-minded, committed soldier of Jesus Christ, even if he has exams coming, would gravitate toward a prayer concert, seemingly as a duck to water. We want prayer. This is the heart. When I was a student at Moody, maybe I was a freak, but I don't think I ever missed a single prayer meeting. We had them every single day in my entire two and a half years there. And I didn't really find it enough, so I created my own nights of prayer. Got a tremendous problem with the faculty, but the Holy Ghost moved anyway. And somehow, a couple of years ago, they invited me back and made me the alumni of the year. Things do change, don't they? I was just with Franklin Graham, Billy Graham's son, a bit of a renegade, wasn't exactly walking for the Lord. He went to Latourneau, and guess what happened to Franklin Graham at Latourneau? Operation Kicko! Uh-oh! Billy Graham's son! Woo! Bang! You're out! Now that he's back with Jesus as the president of Samaritan's Prayers, guess who they invited to speak at the Latourneau banquet? Their ex-student, Franklin Graham. God's people. If you can figure them out, please write me about it. Brothers and sisters, this burden is so heavy on my heart that if I don't insert some humor, I probably will collapse in the process. Men are lost. Radical changes must be made in our lives, in our approach, in how we use our time, in how we use our money. Every area of our life should be radicalized and revolutionized as we become impassioned with this burden to obey Jesus Christ, for he said, if you love me, keep my commandments. That will often be painful for some of us who are not naturally very spiritual, but that's the will of God. And we want to say, as Jesus Christ, my meat, my meat is to do the will of the Father. I beg of you, consider your lifestyle. Consider your mentality. Consider the way you think and pray in regard to money and the unreached people. And make decisions this week that will help bring about the greatest missionary thrust in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Our God and Father, we thank you for this opportunity to be together. With so many who are unable to be here, we thank you that this somehow, I believe, is on cassette tape, and we pray that even this little cassette tape, if it's your will, will go all over America and will result in spontaneous prayer, spontaneous commitment of lives, spontaneous outflow of finance, that we may see a revolution of love, a revolution of esteeming others better than ourselves, to band us together in a new way for world evangelism and for spiritual renewal and restoration, restoration of these great principles concerning prayer, concerning love, concerning evangelism, concerning unity, concerning real commitment and sacrifice, and all the other great biblical principles that we see across the pages of the New Testament. Grant this, we pray, in Jesus Christ's powerful, precious, and glorious name. Amen. I'd ask of you, as you leave, to visit our literature table. It'll only be up for a short time. This is the end of our three-week tour, and so we don't have many books, but I mention this beautiful book on worship and prayer. I want to mention another book, which I referred to by Paul Billheimer, called Love Covers, the most brilliant book on spiritual and Christian unity that I have ever read. It does not challenge us to sacrifice our doctrine, but shows us how we can have an amalgamation and a greater unity in the body of the Lord Jesus Christ. I wanted to read one or two quotes of what some people have said about this unusual book. There's a number of them. Robert Coleman of Asbury, I hope that this message is heard and Armand Guesswine, a great founder of the prayer movement, the book is full of grand insights. Dr. J.I. Packer, I applaud its overall thrust. It's very true and timely. Arthur Blessed, one of the most unusual characters that ever spiritually hit Britain, though he's an American. The book is great, just what we need at this time in the Christian community. Love Covers. I'd like to urge you to read the writings of Roy Heshin. Calvary Road. I wanted to talk more about personal revival, as I touched on corporate revival. And the problem with some corporate revival is that the people were unwilling after it to enter into the ongoing process of personal revival. This is our privilege in Jesus Christ. Old Vance Hadner, whose picture is there in the dining hall, I saw it today. It spoke to my heart. He emphasized that we have in Christ Bible. We have Bible. Therefore, we would need revival. Beautiful. This grew out of the great East African revival. You can have this little magazine book for any donation you want to give, even a dime. My own book, Hunger for Reality. This is the African edition that brought me 17,000 letters from all over the world. You can have that for a dime or anything you want to give. I mentioned the biography of C.T. Studd, one of the most radical Christian missionary biographies ever written. One of the books of Roy Heshin that's not well known is called Forgotten Factors. It's an aid to deeper repentance in the whole area of sexual misbehavior. Every time I take a series at a Christian college, the people that come to me for counseling, and sometimes it's several dozen, often their struggles are in the area of sexuality. Here's a brilliant book on that subject. And lastly, I wanted to mention my own book so I can get four or five more messages into your place of resonance. Just republished with four new chapters, Revolution of Love, where I talk about the Lordship of Christ, similar to the message I gave at Urbana. I talk about world missions today, spiritual balance and self-acceptance. It's a great privilege to have been able to share this burden with you. There's a lot of other literature about Operation Mobilization and Love Europe. Most of it's free. We'd love to get involved with more of you. We've moved our USA coordinating base from New York City to Atlanta. Our literature operation is Waynesboro, Georgia. We need your prayers, as there are now 2,000 of us, and to be quite honest, we're overstretched, underfinanced, and cast upon God. And in the midst of it, we're launching Lagos II, another ship that will house 150 soldiers of Jesus Christ, and we hope reach tens of millions of people with the gospel. We've already got invitations to the Soviet Union, to Poland, and we hope the ship may sail in the month of March. God bless you. It's a joy to be here.